Craving Country

by Gorman, A.

  I step up onto the porch, where old beer cans and shriveled old plants lay abandoned. The door has no bell, just a rusty old knocker hanging on for dear life to the porous wood. I reach for it and use it to knock anyway. Sure enough, it clatters to the ground. I listen for a sign of life, perhaps footsteps, a grunt of a person, the bark of a dog—but I am met with silence. At the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a notice in blood red bold print, but the thick dirt smearing the window makes it difficult to read. I whistle to get Unwin’s attention. He dutifully cooperates and comes to my side.

  “What does that say? I can’t make it out.”

  He drops to one knee and takes his glasses off as he draws closer. “Foreclosure.”

  We both look at one another. Maybe this was Turk Anders’ address, but it isn’t now. I bite the bottom of my lip and gather my thoughts for a moment. We have our first clue: Turk Anders is down on his luck. Now we need to find out why.

  “We need to get hold of the bank that carried out the repossession of the property, find out Anders’ employment status and his reasons for not keeping up on the payments. We also need to get inside the house, which shouldn’t be a problem now the bank owns it, no need for a warrant, but we still need to get to the bank.”

  Before we go back to the car, I decide to walk the perimeter of the property. There’s a pathway at the rear where roots bump up from the ground and branches and leaves strangle the pathway, but just right of the path is an old shed in the distance with flattened grass, which is a stark contrast against the rest of the grass standing tall and overgrown. With my eyes to the ground, I see a few recent cigarette butts; now of course this could be from the police who evicted him, but it is also entirely possible somebody is living in the old shed. Unwin follows. We both say nothing, but I know we are thinking the same thing. He has one hand on his holster, ready to pull out his weapon if necessary. I’ve been in this position so many times in my career, but the adrenaline surging though my body never dies down; it is not something you ever get used to. The smell of fresh tobacco wafts through the gap at the top of the shed door, which is swollen open.

  Unwin and I face one another, guns gripped with both hands and mirroring one another’s movements. I nod my head, and Unwin kicks the door open. A piece wood flies across the floor. There in the corner of the shed is an unmade bed, sheets tangled into a knot, and a hatch at the back where a man is trying to escape.

  Chapter Seven

  Pamela

  “Truth is he was a man down on his luck, and I just wanted to do the Christian thing and help him out, y’know. That’s why I gave him a good meal and something to drink.” Jimmy Beaven sits with his hands crossed in front of him. The diner is quiet, so he keeps his voice hushed.

  “I don’t get it,” I say, shaking my head. “If you did all those nice things for him, why would somebody suggest he killed our boys?”

  Tammy lets out a heavy sigh, her face even more flushed than usual. She yanks up her low-cut top, trying to cover her breasts spilling out on the table.

  “Tammy?” I ask suspiciously. “Tammy, you need to talk to me.”

  She looks up at me with tears pooling in her eyes; my heart begins to pound heavily in my chest.

  “He was putting the other customers off, y’know, coming in here daily, stinking to high heavens, and getting a free meal on us, and everybody else paying their way…so I…I…”

  “Go on,” I prompt.

  “I told him he couldn’t come in here anymore…and the boys, they made remarks about his hygiene. I thought he would understand, but something inside him seemed to switch. He grabbed one of the chairs and started preaching verses from the Bible.”

  “Saying what exactly?”

  “Something about him being a poor man and insulting his maker. He looked unhinged…feral.”

  “So because you refused him, he sought revenge by killing the boys. It’s insane, absolutely insane.”

  “What did she say to you on the phone, the caller?” Tammy asks.

  “None of what you just told me. Only his name. I’ve never heard of Turk Anders before, and I sure as hell don’t understand why he would kill children over this isolated incident. Was it an isolated incident?”

  “As I said, Pam, until that day we took care of him.”

  A woman in her late fifties walks past us, looking at the four of us sitting at the table with interest. She looks familiar, but I don’t know her name. Maybe she’s one of the grandmothers from the children’s school.

  “Is there something you need?” I scowl. Nowadays, everybody is a suspect. I don’t hold back in letting my thoughts out in the open. Why the hell should I?

  “I’m sorry about your children. All of you.” Then she turns on her heel and quickly makes a dash for the door.

  “You don’t think she was the caller, do you?” I say.

  “Didn’t sound like her, and I always get people coming in here telling me how sorry they are. I feel like a celebrity for all the wrong reasons. I. Hate. It.”

  A short while after, I leave the diner and head to the woods. I park my car in the same spot as the first night of Brent’s disappearance. I walk off the crunch of the gravel and into the woods; the moist grass brushes against my bare ankles. I inhale a deep breath, wanting to ingest Brent’s spirit into my own. In the distance, I see a younger couple walking a dog—it all seems so normal. Nothing feels normal to me anymore, even the simple act of brushing my teeth. I still have Brent’s toothbrush next to mine. It’s a haunting reminder he is no longer there; I’ll never have to nag him to brush his teeth before bed again. I stay in the woods for a while, finding a fallen log to perch myself on and gather my thoughts. I’m giving the police exactly one hour before I return to the station. The name Turk Anders is at the forefront of my mind, for all this time I want to find the person who carried out this heinous crime. I imagine how I’ll act when I come face to face with them for the first time. I wonder what I’ll say, what I’ll do; I fantasize the pain I will inflict upon him. A small cricket suddenly lands on my hand. Brent loved crickets. I look up to sky. A shard of sunlight beams through the canopy of trees, and for the very first time I feel my son’s presence next to me. I hold my hand where the cricket sits out into the empty space in front of me. I expect the insect to jump into the pile of leaves, never to be seen again, but when it doesn’t, I take it as a sign Brent is really there with me.

  Chapter Eight

  Rachel

  When we have Turk Anders in custody, he sits silently in the interview room. I’ll never forget the putrid smell of piss and sweat; it’s clear he hasn’t washed in weeks. His body is malnourished, all skin and bone, and his hair is an unnatural rusty orange with long strands sticking out from his t-shirt, reminding me of pieces of dried beef jerky. I imagine his lifestyle at the address we located him, alone, living in the deep outback, feral and hostile, with animals stripped and split hanging in his kitchen. We have a pair of bloodied tennis shoes sitting in the middle of the table concealed in a clear plastic bag marked as evidence. They were found in a hatch underneath the shed. Forensics ran an urgent check, and the blood matched Justin Pinkman. Later, we found more damning evidence linking him to all four boys. We have our guy, but we don’t have a confession.

  Turk Anders is a dummy—merely existing. I’ve been in the room with so many killers in my time, listened to their denials and sometimes motives, but the eerie silence and emotionless being of Anders frightens me more than anything. Unwin and I fired question after question—and nothing.

  The trial puts the small town of Colebrook on the map for all the wrong reasons; the once small town is now at the center of a huge media storm. Some of the locals hungrily peruse five minutes of fame, giving their portrayal of the murders, but not one of them has any clue that the once hardworking, quiet man, Turk Anders, was a cold-blooded killer. We looked into his history, convinced there had to be something more sinister in his past to make him snap, but we found nothing. Anders fell
on hard times, and when his town rejected him, he took his revenge out on four innocent little boys. It took a Colebrook jury less than forty minutes to find Turk Anders guilty of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree murder of minors Justin Pinkman, Dirk Miller, Brent Sharpe, and Darryl Brenner.

  With bated breath, the nation watched as the judge clamped his stern gaze onto Turk Anders and began his sentencing:

  “There is no act more evil and heinous than the fate you deliberately brought upon four innocent young boys. You robbed them of their future, a chance to explore the world, to one day have families of their own. Their families will never again feel at true peace; you are solely responsible for the misery they have to learn to live with for the rest of their lives. I do not pray for you, Mr. Anders—I pray for the peace of the families you have destroyed—I pray in time the town of Colebrook will be able to only find fond memories of the four lives you took and not remember you—The Devil in Dixie—because you do not deserve to be remembered, not after the way you ended those boys’ lives. With all that said, I submit to you the only appropriate punishment in this case for these inconceivable crimes—the death penalty.

  Chapter Nine

  Pamela

  “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

  I read aloud a bible verse to the group of people who form what I have named The Circle of Trust. It took me months after Brent’s death to feel any emotions besides anger and pain. My little boy had been cruelly taken from me, but no matter how much I wanted to turn back the clock and re-write history—it was impossible. I decided to leave Colebrook County; I couldn’t stand to be met with the sorrowful faces every time I went to carry out normal tasks like a trip to the grocery store or avoided when I went to the post office because some people were afraid of me—scared my horrible fate would somehow rub off on them. In a few weeks, Turk Anders will die by lethal injection. A life for a life, or in this case, four. It does not feel like the right punishment. Nothing ever will, not until I die and see my beautiful boy again. My faith is somewhat repairing; I need something to hold onto, to believe in the power of something so much greater. When I moved to a larger city, I felt great relief in walking the streets where nobody knew my dark history, but I still needed to heal the gaping hole in my heart, so I decided to run a non-profit group for families whose children had been murdered. At first, I wondered why I was pouring salt in my wounds, but there is a lot that can be said for group therapy. It may not be for everyone, but it has helped me. I’ll never ever be the same again, but I promise to be a better person for Brent.

  The End

  About the Author

  Novelist, movie addict, and animal lover, Cristina Slough is the author of Till Death Us Do Part and Nelumbo Nucifera. She has also contributed to three anthologies with Limitless Publishing. Cristina has always been a bookworm and loves delving into a fictional world of her own.

  Cristina is married to Adam, who runs a successful business; together, they share their Bedfordshire home with their son and several spoiled pets. They will be adding a new baby to the family early next year.

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  https://m.facebook.com/cristinasloughauthor?ref=bookmarks

  Twitter:

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  http://www.cristinaslough.com/

  Everything Bitterweed

  By Amelia James

  Bitterweed, Wisconsin, population twelve and dwindling. Ariel Petty’s hometown was so small her GPS app couldn’t find it. Not that she needed directions. She could find her way home any number of ways. She’d scoffed at the invitation to her high school reunion. Not even a real card. Patti Wallace, the class president, had added her to a Facebook group without asking. Ariel had only stuck around long enough to catch the date, time, and location, then bailed without comment. The only people she wanted to see she’d kept in touch with, and that happened to be no one.

  She’d woken up at two o’clock in the morning, morphing the edges of a bad dream into her favorite glorious return home fantasy. Walking into that bar—yes, her hick friends had booked their reunion at the town’s one restaurant—in a fabulous dress and killer heels to rub their backwoods noses in her rockstar chef career. Catching his eye, making him want her, taking him out to the crumbling old barn and kissing—no. She wouldn’t pursue that idea even if she wanted to.

  She’d left Bitterweed right after graduation to go to college in Minneapolis and never looked back. Her culinary success would bloom like a rose in a pile of cow manure. No one had to know the truth.

  Decisions made in the middle of the night rarely ended well. She’d sprung out of bed, packed a few things, and hit the road, leaving the bright lights of the big city behind and driving toward the past. God, what am I doing?

  A deer jumped out of the woods and ran across the road in front of her car, but Ariel had seen its eyes glowing in the dark, so she stopped in plenty of time to let the creature pass safely. Some things never change. She slowly drove past the rest of the herd standing in the ditch staring at her, but she barely saw them, her mind suddenly occupied by the one person she missed.

  Would Eddie be there? Her high school sweetheart. Of course he would. He’d never leave that dead-end town, which was exactly why they’d broken up. Did he still hate her? He’d been mad when she left. She’d waited for him at the barn, but he didn’t come. She’d needed to say goodbye. He wouldn’t.

  Sunrise lit the tops of the trees as she drove over a hill. From this point, she could see the highway winding toward her destination. Home. Once. But had it ever really been where she belonged? Bitterweed didn’t have a hotel, but Ariel didn’t need one. She’d stay at her parents’ house. Damn thing still hadn’t sold after her mom died three years ago. Just another sign that the town had nothing to live for.

  The car descended, swallowed up by darkness as the thick forest cut off the early morning sun. A red light on her dashboard caught her eye. Is that the engine symbol? “Shit.” Something clunked, and then the whole car shuddered. Ariel pulled over on the narrow shoulder choked with yellow weed flowers as the engine coughed then died. “Damn it!” She pounded on the steering wheel and turned the key, but nothing happened. Dead silence from the car and the woods around her.

  She pulled out her phone and prayed for a signal. “Yes! Two bars.” Sunlight filtered through the trees, bringing the forest to life. Birds sang an annoyingly cheery morning tune while Ariel stood beside her car, trying to communicate her location to the roadside service. “Highway 45, about six miles west of Bitterweed. Yes, Bitterweed, like that ugly yellow flower that grows by the road.” She’d parked in the pervasive plant. “Up to an hour? All right, thanks.”

  Welcome back. Ariel grumbled and leaned back against the car. What the hell was I thinking? She never should’ve come. She really didn’t have anything left to brag about anyway.

  Some people called him crazy for getting up before sunrise to work in his garage, but Eddie Grayhawk had been called a lot worse. He ducked under the hood of the 1987 Ford F150 that Jack, former classmate and current high school principal, had brought in yesterday. The thing had seen better days, but Jack refused to part with it. Eddie couldn’t blame him. The man didn’t want a car payment hanging over his head. Jack could’ve taken it to another mechanic closer to home, but Eddie had built a solid reputation for quality work. People from all over the county brought their vehicles to him.

  When Jack had mentioned the reunion, Eddie lost his grip on the socket wrench and dropped the damn thing into the engine. He’d found it within seconds but spent a good five minutes pretending to search so Jack wouldn’t see the heat on his face. Would Ariel be there? God, he missed that woman. He should’ve gone to the barn to say goodbye, but he’d refused to believe she’d never come back. In the last fif
teen years, she’d only come home once, when her mother died. She hadn’t come to see him or anyone except the real estate agent who put her family’s house on the market. He’d tried to get her attention at the funeral, to offer some comfort, but she’d held his gaze for only a moment then returned to her grief.

  Since then, the only time he’d seen her was when her Minneapolis restaurant made the local news. She’d sent him a Christmas card the year after she left. He’d sent her a birthday card every year, but she’d never acknowledged them. Had she forgotten him? He’d never forgotten her. Sometimes he’d go for weeks or months without thinking about her, but other times, like today, he couldn’t get her out of his head. How could he be so hung up on a woman he’d never even slept with?

  Fortunately, the phone on his workbench rang and snapped him out of his longing. “Who the hell is calling this early?” He wiped his oily hands on a rag and grabbed the receiver. In this remote part of the country, landlines were more reliable than cell phones. “Grayhawk Motors.”

  “This is June from Shield Insurance. One of our policyholders is stranded on Highway 45. Do you have a tow truck?”

  He glanced at the beat-up vehicle parked between the garage and his house. “Yes.”

  “Good. She’s six miles west of Bitterweed. Do you know where that is?”

  “I’m standing in it.” Eddie smirked. Outsiders had never heard of the place, couldn’t find it on a map.

  “Okay. You’re looking for a silver 2012 Acura TL.”

  That kind of car was too fancy for a local. A vehicle only a few years old shouldn’t be having engine trouble. Idiot probably ran out of gas.